Allen Hall and Joel Saxum discuss the critical issue of failed blade bolt inserts with Edo Kuipers of We4Ce. Edo explains the problem, its widespread impact on the wind energy sector, and introduces We4Ce's innovative solution - an upgraded blade bolt insert that can be retrofitted in the field, potentially saving operators significant downtime and repair costs.







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Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxum. On this episode, we're addressing a critical issue that is plaguing the wind energy sector, the problem of failed blade bolt inserts in wind turbine blades. And these failures have a significant concern for wind energy operators, leading to downtime, costly repairs, and the potential for liberated blades.







Our guest is Edo Kuipers, owner and engineering manager of We4Ce. And We4Ce is based in the Netherlands. We foresee offers a range of services related to the design and engineering of wind turbine rotor blades. And they have designed an upgraded blade bolt insert that can be retrofitted in the field. And this new insert product could dramatically lower a wind turbine operator's downtime and blade repair costs.







Edo, welcome to the show.







Edo Kuipers: Thanks for having me here, Allen and Joel.







Allen Hall: So this is a really interesting product, but I first, I want to get to how big of a problem do we have in the industry? And Joel and I have been traveling around the United States quite a bit. And pretty much every farm we stopped at had blade bolt insert issues.







They didn't know why they were having them, but they had them and they were deeply concerned about it because of what could happen to the turban. And Edo, are you seeing the same thing? Are you getting a lot of reach out that way?







Edo Kuipers: Yeah, more and more we see this. I think in 2021, we were contacted by the Indian market for the first time.







Those were 40 meter long blades, 1. 5 megawatt platform. And those blades were like 13 years on the turbine. And then all suddenly started flying off basically. And more and more recently,